Would modern humans survive a volcanic winter

Some 74,000 years ago an Indonesian super-volcano exploded, blanketing the planet in a thick cloud of ash, and plunging our ancestors into a decade long volcanic winter, followed by centuries of cool climate. Or did it? The impact of this mega-eruption is heavily debated by scientists, but new ice core evidence suggests that Toba didn't chill the world quite as much as we thought.

Toba's ash has never been found in polar ice cores, but now Anders Svensson, from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, and his colleagues, found traces of Toba in Greenland and Antarctica, by measuring acidity levels in the ice. In both ice cores the scientists found four acidic spikes within a few hundred years, caused by volcano-induced acid rain. Possibly this means that Toba erupted four times in quick succession, or that another very large tropical volcano was erupting around the same time.

Regardless of the number of eruptions, the width of the acid rain spikes show that the climate bounced back to normal after just a few years each time. "A long-term global winter seems out of the question," says Svensson. This lesser catastrophe fits with archaeological evidence from India, which shows that our ancestors survived the mega-eruption, despite being blanketed by ash. Without doubt there will be another super-volcanic eruption one day. That Toba was not as devastating as previously thought is somewhat reassuring, though whether we'd be as resilient as our ancestors remains to be seen.

New Zealand tornado

A tornado has swept through neighborhoods around New Zealand's largest city, killing three people and forcing 250 more to evacuate their homes.

The small tornado hit Hobsonville and Whenuapai, western suburbs of Auckland, during a midday storm that uprooted trees, damaged buildings and caused flooding that closed roads.

Authorities said that as well as those who died, seven people suffering a range of injuries were admitted to hospitals.

Auckland council spokesman Glyn Walters said the storm made about 150 homes uninhabitable. He said some of those homes had roofs torn off or were severely damaged while others had more minor damage or had lost power. He said 250 residents were taken to an air force base at Whenuapai, where council staff and welfare workers were assisting them.

The worst weather appeared to have passed by mid-afternoon, Walters said. "It's clearing up slightly but people need to be careful out there," he said.

Auckland fire service area commander Larry Cocker said at least three people had died in the storm. One was hit by a tree and some others who were killed or injured were workers building a school.

Several media outlets reported that two of those who died were in an accident involving a slab of concrete falling on a truck.

Smoke from Arctic wildfires may have caused Greenland's record thaw

The freak melt of the Greenland ice sheet last summer may have been forced by smoke from Arctic wildfires, new research suggests.

Satellite observations, due to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union on Friday, for the first time tracks smoke and soot particles from tundra wildfires over to Greenland.

Scientists have long known that soot blackens snow and ice, reducing its powers of reflectivity and making it more likely to melt under the sun.

But the satellite records, due to be presented by the Ohio State University geographer Jason Box, go a step further, picking up images of smoke over Greenland at the time of last summer's extreme melt.

Greenland experienced its most dramatic melting since satellite records began last July, with virtually the entire ice sheet showing signs of a thaw over the course of four days. Box oversaw the Greenland portion of Noaa's annual report on the Arctic, which was released earlier this week and was in Greenland around the time of last summer's extraordinary melt.

Japan earthquake and tsunami

Japan escaped largely unscathed on Friday after a magnitude 7.3 earthquake shook the north-east coast. It was, however, a chilling reminder of the 9.0 quake that struck the area in March 2011, triggering a tsunami that killed almost 20,000 people and a triple meltdown at the nearby Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Initially, the appearance on TV screens of a tsunami warning, and repeated announcements to remember last year's tragedy and flee the coast, prompted fears of a second disaster in less than two years in the worst-affected prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima.

Less than an hour later, a tsunami washed ashore in Ishinomaki, one of the hardest-hit towns in last year's tragedy, where the rebuilding process has barely begun. Mercifully, this time the wave was just a metre high. Two hours after the quake struck 150 miles offshore at 5:18pm local time, the meteorological agency cancelled its tsunami warning.

Narita airport closed briefly for safety checks and phone lines were temporarily jammed by the large volume of calls. Several, much smaller, tsunamis lashed other parts of the coast, including Soma city, which lies just outside the 12-mile (20km) evacuation zone imposed around the Fukushima plant.

Storms Possible this Weekend

A few thunderstorms could become marginally severe along a stalled front from extreme northeast Texas to northwest Louisiana and southern Arkansas on Saturday.

Sunday, a few isolated severe storms with localized damaging winds and hail may develop along a cold front from northeast Texas and northern Louisiana to southwest Indiana, extreme southern Illinois and western Kentucky.

We have all the maps you need to track severe weather below, including watches and warnings, radar, and our exclusive TOR:CON tornado risk forecasts.  We also have links to see what your typical climatological tornado risk is, as well as links to our iWitness photo/video galleries and our Notify! severe alerts service.

Arctic Air Sweep into Twin Cities

An initial upper-level disturbance ("shortwave" in met-geek speak) will push east from the Dakotas to the Great Lakes Friday through early Saturday, spreading a stripe of light snow from South Dakota to Minnesota, parts of Wisconsin and Lower Michigan.

After that, we will turn our attention to a more significant storm system for the weekend.

A pronounced dip in the jet stream, or trough, will dig southward into the southern Rockies.

Is the World Coming to An End?

Rumors that the world is coming to an end this month are greatly exaggerated, according to NASA officials.

Every year or two, there seems to be some sort of rumor that the world is coming to an end. The most recent myth gaining traction is based on the Mayan calendar, which ends on Dec. 21, 2012. Conspiracy theorists say that's the day the earth will end. However, the most recent fears have found a new audience: children. 

David Morrison, a planetary astronomer for NASA, answers questions online each week from the public about astrobiology. He says he's received more than 5,000 questions about the impending end of the world rumor including some from children. 

Morrison is an award-winning astrobiologist who has been a science investigator on NASA's Mariner, Voyager, and Galileo space missions. He took to the internet recently to assuage fears and definitively answer whether the world will end on Dec. 21. The answer: THE WORLD WILL NOT END ON DEC. 21 according to Morrison.

Cold and Snow Will Return

The winter solstice may be over two weeks away, however, if you're in the northern half of the nation or live in the high country, the mere mention of "December" brings thoughts of skiing, shoveling, snowmen, and cold.  

So far, outside the Cascades, Sierra, northern Rockies and Alaska, the atmosphere hasn't exactly matched that December perception.

According to the National Climatic Data Center, over 1,600 daily warm temperature records were tied or broken in the 7-day period from Nov. 27 through Dec. 3 over the U.S.  In addition, 91 monthlytemperature records were tied or set in that same period.  

West Get Drenched

SAN FRANCISCO  — The third powerful storm in a week drenched an already saturated Northern California, but concerns of serious flooding eased as the system moved through faster than expected.  In fact, the powerful storm ended up dumping more snow than rain on the California-Nevada region.

The storm dropping as much as an inch of rain per hour Sunday in some areas, toppling trees and knocking out electrical service to tens of thousands of people, officials said.

Rivers across Northern California swelled from the deluge, but did not flood as extensively as had been expected, officials said.

Forecasters had issued flood warnings for the Napa and Russian rivers, two rivers north of San Francisco with a history of flooding, as well as the Truckee River, near Lake Tahoe, but by Sunday afternoon had canceled the warning for the Russian River. In an article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, forecasters in Reno, Nevada told said they "dodged a bullet" on this storm. 

Record Warmth Comes to an End

Monday featured extraordinary warmth for early December over parts of the nation's mid-section.  According to the National Climatic Data Center, 34 locations from Texas to Michigan either tied or set new all-time December record highs, including:

• Kansas City, Mo. (74) tying a record from Dec. 5, 2001 and Dec. 6, 1939
• Ottumwa, Ia. (71) tying a record from Dec. 4, 1998
• Traverse City, Mich. (64) tying a record from Dec. 3, 1962
• Madison, Wisc. (65) breaking their record from Dec. 5, 2001

By the way, it was Traverse City, Mich. that was, arguably, the epicenter of the incredible March record warm spell, tying or breaking their all-time March record high 5 straight days from Mar. 17-21, in addition to setting their earliest-in-season 80-degree-plus temperature.  

Rockford, Ill. also set a new all-time December record high Monday (69).  Not only was this a December record, but it was the second warmest day on record for the months of Dec., Jan., and Feb., so-called "meteorological winter".  Only Feb. 25, 2000 (70) was warmer, according to the National Weather Service in Chicago.

Storm on Saturn

NASA's Cassini spacecraft sent back breathtaking images of a massive swirling storm near the north pole of Saturn. The first four images above show the spectacular vortex that was photographed on November 27, 2012 at a distance of around 250,000 miles from Saturn.

A story about the storm on NASA's website says that the Cassini spacecraft has been traveling the Saturnian system in a set of inclined, or tilted, orbits that give mission scientists a vertigo-inducing view of Saturn's polar regions. This perspective has yielded images of roiling storm clouds and the swirling vortex at the center of Saturn's famed north polar hexagon.

Typhoon Bopha Hits Phillipines

Typhoon Bopha made landfall in the southern Philippines early Tuesday, local time, packing maximum sustained winds of 160 mph.

According to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, Bopha's powerful, but rather small hurricane wind field (only somewhat larger than 2004's Hurricane Charley) roared ashore in Mindanao Island early Tuesday morning, local time, as the equivalent of a category-five hurricane. Mindanao is the second largest and easternmost island in the Philippines.  

Levees protect New Orleans, but annual bill is crushing

In the busy and under-staffed offices of New Orleans' flood-control leaders, there's an uneasy feeling about what lies ahead.

By the time the next hurricane season starts in June of 2013, the city will take control of much of a revamped protection system of gates, walls and armored levees that the Army Corps of Engineers has spent about $12 billion building. The corps has about $1 billion worth of work left. 

Engineers consider it a Rolls Royce of flood protection — comparable to systems in seaside European cities such as St. Petersburg, Venice, Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Whether the infrastructure can hold is less in question than whether New Orleans can be trusted with the keys.

Worst US drought in decades deepens to cover 60 percent of lower 48 states

ST. LOUIS -- The worst U.S. drought in decades has deepened again after more than a month of encouraging reports of slowly improving conditions, a drought-tracking consortium said Wednesday, as scientists struggled for an explanation other than a simple lack of rain.

While more than half of the continental U.S. has been in a drought since summer, rain storms had appeared to be easing the situation week by week since late September. But that promising run ended with Wednesday's weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report, which showed increases in the portion of the country in drought and the severity of it.

The report showed that 60.1 percent of the lower 48 states were in some form of drought as of Tuesday, up from 58.8 percent the previous week. The amount of land in extreme or exceptional drought — the two worst classifications — increased from 18.3 percent to 19.04 percent.

Activists Hope for Climate Talks

During a year with a monster storm and scorching heat waves, Americans have experienced the kind of freakish weather that many scientists say will occur more often on a warming planet.

And as a re-elected president talks about global warming again, climate activists are cautiously optimistic that the U.S. will be more than a disinterested bystander when the U.N. climate talks resume Monday with a two-week conference in Qatar.

"I think there will be expectations from countries to hear a new voice from the United States," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate and energy program at the World Resources Institute in Washington.

2012 heading for top 10 warmest years globally, UN reports

DOHA, Qatar -- Despite cooling from La Nina early in the year, 2012 is on track to become one of the top 10 warmest years on record, with the U.S. experiencing extreme warmth and Arctic Sea ice shrinking to its lowest extent, the U.N. weather agency said Wednesday.

In a statement released at international climate talks in Qatar, the World Meteorological Organization said the "alarming rate" of the Arctic melt highlights the far-reaching changes caused by global warming.

"Climate change is taking place before our eyes and will continue to do so as a result of the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which have risen constantly and again reached new records," WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said.

Late-November Snow Blankets Northeast, New England

Early Tuesday afternoon, Weather Channel meteorologist Mike Seidel stood in a snow-covered yard in Reading, Pa., delivering positive news.

"The really nice thing about this snowfall across the Northeast and New England today is, basically, it's not sticking to the roadways in most areas," he said.

While the wet snow left roads slick and slushy in areas seeing the heaviest accumulations, cars and buses were able to navigate with very little trouble during the workday. This snow event, as it pushed into New Jersey and eventually New York City and Connecticut, seemed to be mostly cooperative with workers in the early-going.

Chicago's Economy Hurting from Sandy

Chicago area businesses felt the wrath of Hurricane Sandy, a massive storm that one early forecast says could end up costing as much as $50 billion in damages and lost business activity nationally while trimming economic growth this quarter.

This short-term blow to the economy will not be “catastrophic” but is expected to subtract about 0.6 percentage point growth from U.S. gross domestic product in the October-December quarter, forecaster IHS Global Insight says in early estimates. The firm projects the storm, which pummeled the Northeast, will end up costing about $20 billion in infrastructure damages and $10 billion to $30 billion in lost business.

The hurricane has resulted in lost wages, production and sales for businesses throughout the region, which makes up about 15 percent of the nation’s economy and covers 15 states.

But Chicago-based Morningstar Inc. economist Robert Johnson doesn’t expect major long-term damage to the economy due to the storm.

http://www.suntimes.com/business/16055765-420/chicago-area-businesses-felt-sandys-wrath.html

Sandy's Aftermath

http://www.weather.com/news/weather-hurricanes/sandy-top-five-20121028

Sandy continues to weaken over the interior Northeast, however gusty winds, snow and rain will linger into Wednesday.

Below are some of the latest developments as we continue to track Superstorm Sandy.

1: Millions Still Without Power

• As of 1 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday, over 5.9 million customers were without power due to Sandy.
• On Tuesday morning, a peak total of over 8 million customers were in the dark. Obviously the Northeast was hardest hit, but significant outages occurred in northern Ohio, and sporadic outages occurred as far away as northwest Indiana and northern Georgia.
• In some regions, power failures were nearly total. Governor Andrew Cuomo said 90% of Long Island families were without power Tuesday. One of New Jersey's utilities reported 86% of its 1.1 million customers were without power Tuesday morning, and that figure was still 86% early Wednesday.

2: Numerous Fatalities Reported

• As of mid-morning Wednesday, the total number of fatalities blamed on Sandy is 47 in the mainland United States plus one in Puerto Rico.
• Many of the victims were killed by falling trees.
• Sandy also killed 69 people in the Caribbean. Click here for a complete roundup of Sandy's aftermath in the Caribbean.

Lightening in Washington

As large wildfires are going ramped along mountain peaks in Washington, firefighters are desperately trying to put them out.  As if this wasn't enough, a lightening storm warning was issued through Saturday night in Wenatchee, WA.  If it was forecasted with rain as well, the threat of spreading fires and/or new fires forming wouldn't have been so bad, however, these lightening storms are not supposed to come with rain.

Dry lightening and high winds set the perfect stage for wild fires to ignite. Especially with the dry season that the U.S. has experienced this year.

Firefighters are trying to gain control of the existing fires, so the chance of wildfire in nearby towns and cities is less, but there always poses a risk to blow in an unexpected direction. Residents are advised to stay indoors and stay posted on alerts for the town.  The smoke and debris from the fires also poses a threat to society nearby.


http://www.weather.com/news/western-wildfires-20120916